The Leaves of Memory
by KYTIVAFAN
Summary: Ziva begins the healing process.  This is the start of multi-chapter fic on how Ziva came to terms with her time in Somalia  assuming that she has .  There is a big hole in the canon version of events – this is my attempt to somewhat fill that hole.
1. Chapter 1  And so it begins

_The leaves of memory seemed to make a mournful rustling in the dark. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_

Chapter One: And so it begins….

Ziva sat at Gibb's kitchen table with a yellow legal pad and a drafting pencil. She had found the items in the kitchen drawer along with spare batteries, a book of matches and a sundry of screws, latches and nuts. She was alone as Gibbs wouldn't be returning home until after 1900 hours – if they didn't have an active case.

She had been back from Somalia for a week. During that time she had seen only Director Vance, Gibbs and her NCIS appointed therapist. The others had stopped by, both individually and collectively, but she had pleaded fatigue to Gibbs as her excuse for not seeing them. She knew he saw through her ruse, but he choose not to push her on the issue. She was extremely grateful to him for acting as her buffer, she wasn't ready to see the pain and pity in their eyes – she saw enough of that when she looked in the mirror and saw an unfamiliar face staring back at her.

Sometimes she thought she had in fact died in that cell and she was nothing but a ghost haunting her former friends and team mates. Other times, she knew she was very much alive when the physical and emotional pain caused her to cry out in her sleep. It was during these times that Gibbs would gather her to his chest while stroking her hair like a child. No words were uttered, they weren't needed – all she wanted was his gentle presence, which he seemed content to give her.

Afterwards, they wouldn't discuss the comforting sessions – they would go back to co-existing in his home – where she felt welcome but never comfortable. It hurt her heart that Gibbs would see her like this, yet he was the only one she trusted enough in her current state. She didn't know why she trusted him above all others, maybe it was because they had both dealt in death; a bond forged in blood and pain.

Her therapist was a tiny Jewish woman named Dr. Silverman. She reminded Ziva quite a lot of her beloved Aunt Nettie. If the circumstances had been different – she could imagine liking the grandmotherly doctor. At first they conversed in Hebrew, but that proved too intimate so Ziva switched to English, discussing even the mundane in her native tongue brought her to the brink of tears.

She felt obliged to talk Dr. Silverman about her return to NCIS, yet she refused to talk about what happened to her in the desert – her reluctance disguised as _classified Mossad intelligence_.

As a compromise, Dr. Silverman suggested _journal therapy_. She could journal her thoughts, memories and feelings related to her captivity – then she could do with the pages as she pleased – she could keep them or burn them; the important thing was to be honest with herself and actually write it down and read what she had written. She was challenged to journal for at least an hour a day in addition to her daily sessions with Dr. Silverman.

She was loath to commit her memories to paper; if she wrote them down she would have to face them and eventually deal with them. She knew this was the impetus for her recovery and more importantly a return to NCIS and she would do whatever was necessary to make that happen – so, she began to write.

She wrote for over an hour and found that she was oddly calm; maybe this type of therapy would not be so hard after all.

Secretly pleased with herself; she started to read what she had written; it read like a Mossad debriefing report – factual, yet lacking in emotion and personalization, it left her numb and complacent.

As she struck a match to burn the pages – she thought '_I am ok with that – it is a beginning._'


	2. Stepping Lightly down a dark path

_Footfalls echo in the memory down the passage which we did not take  
>towards the door we never opened<br>~T.S. Eliot_

Chapter 2: Stepping lightly down a dark path….

Ziva tossed and turned searching for that elusive perfect _spot_ that proved just right for slumber, but the effort proved fruitless – yet again.

Despite what Gibbs believed, it wasn't nightmares that kept her awake – it was insomnia. No matter how much she wanted it, sleep would not claim her. Sometimes she thought she would welcome a nightmare – at least she would be able to sleep until it woke her.

She tried reading, but it didn't hold her interest so she clicked on the small black and white television that Gibbs had placed in her room. She smiled to herself as she thought '_Tony would be horrified if he knew_ _about this TV'_. As quickly as thoughts of Tony came, she just as quickly pushed them away; nothing good could come of thinking about him. She flicked through the channels – all three of them – and found nothing to watch. She was not interested in corn futures or the rising cost of pork.

Sighing in frustration, she got out bed and ventured into the kitchen for a glass of milk. She had read somewhere that milk was a natural sedative. She poured a glass and drank it while leaning against the counter. Looking around the dimly lit kitchen, she saw the yellow legal pad and pencil lying on the table where she had left them earlier that day.

She contemplated the pad and pencil while she finished her milk. '_It had not been so bad earlier._'

She pulled out the chair, sat down in the semi-darkness and started to write….

O0O

I made Gibbs choose. It was the only way I could get him to leave without me.

As I watched their plane climb into the sky, I knew I would never be the same again; they were taking part of me with them. The best part I thought. The only part I had left was the assassin. My life as I had to come to know it was over.

The mission was doomed from the start. I knew it. My father knew it. I felt I owed it to Michael to finish what he was unable to complete. He was not who I thought he was, but I cared about him. This was to be my aliyah – my return.

I walked into it with my eyes open. I was not tricked into going nor was I deceived – at least that is what I believed at the time. Now I know otherwise.

I should have turned back with the others after we scuttled the ship, but pride or maybe arrogance would not allow that. I had nothing but death in my heart. I wanted it that way. I chose it. To allow my heart anything but death would be the end of me.

It took two weeks to reach the camp; it was exactly where my father told me it would be.

I killed 7 men and wounded several others before I was captured.

I did not plan on being taken alive. No one would be coming for me.

The four men who captured me beat me unmercifully. I fought them hard and cursed them cruelly hoping it would make them angry enough to kill me.

Instead, they threw me into a small room with no windows, no furniture and sand for a floor. They left me there bruised and bleeding for hours. Perhaps it was days. I really do not remember.

Sometime later, Saleem entered the cell– even with my eyes swollen half shut I recognized him from his dossier photo. I remember idly thinking that he had lost weight since the photo was taken. Being an international terrorist on the run from multiple governments will do that to you. I may have smiled at the thought.

He knelt over me and gently caressed my face – I recoiled from his touch. That must have made him angry because he grabbed my hair pulling me roughly and painfully from the floor. He leaned into my face – I could smell his breath and his sweat, he whispered "Tell me everything you know about NCIS".

I thanked the God of my childhood for my swollen eyes and face so he could not see the shock and surprise that I am sure I showed.

I had been expecting him to ask about Mossad, about my mission, but I was not expecting that.

It was my first indication that something was terribly wrong with this mission.

O0O

By the time Ziva finished writing, her hands were shaking and she was covered with a fine sheen of sweat. She laid her head on the table to get her breathing under control. She felt physically exhausted.

She got up and walked unsteadily over to the sink while reading what she had just written.

This time it did not read like a Mossad field report – it was more _personal_.

She struck a match to burn the pages, and after a brief consideration, she hesitantly blew it out.

She would not be burning these pages - these memories - after all.


End file.
